Chill Out at Free Summer Movies in the Park

As the sun goes down and sizzling temperatures drop a bit, grab your kids, your lawn chairs and some cold drinks and head out to see the first Summer Movies in the Park this year.

The largest free movie event in the county kicks off Friday, May 16.

County Parks and Recreation and sponsor cities are bringing back the free movie series for the seventh year in a row with even more films than last year and more places to see them. This time around the series is offering 89 movies, 16 more than last year. For the first time, the City of Chula Vista will offer a film at one of its parks, Memorial Park and the County’s brand new Waterfront Park downtown will also show a movie this summer on a 40-foot screen.

The films range from recent popular movies such as “Frozen,” “Monsters University” and “Despicable Me 2” to children’s classics like “Mary Poppins” and “The Little Mermaid.” The films are all rated G to PG-13 and no matter where you live in the County, it’s very likely you can catch one at a giant screen near you. Locations are sprinkled throughout the County from Fallbrook and Oceanside to the north to Lakeside and Julian in the east, Chula Vista in the south, coastal areas like Point Loma, Mission Bay and Ocean Beach and dozens of communities in between.

The Summer Movies in the Park series runs through Sept. 27 and many locations offer arts and crafts, games and other fun activities for children an hour or so before the show starts at dusk.

The first two movies in the series will be shown on Friday with the “The Sandlot” at Heritage Park in Old Town and “frozen” at Robert Egger, Sr. – South Bay Community Park.